Magen David Adom midwife pushes broader women’s health role

Israeli midwife Gila Zarbiv believes midwives should play a much larger role in women’s health care than they currently do.

A hospital midwife, researcher, mother of four and volunteer with Magen David Adom, Zarbiv is working to expand women’s access to midwifery care and move women’s health closer to the center of Israel’s health-care system.

When her MDA phone may rings while she is writing research, studying for her Ph.D. or spending time with her family in Jerusalem. If it involves a woman in labor, a postpartum emergency or another nearby health crisis, she grabs her midwife kit and heads out the door.

Born in Pittsburgh, Zarbiv made aliyah after graduating from Yeshiva University in 2007 with degrees in biology and Judaic studies. Because Israeli midwives must first train as nurses, she enrolled at Hadassah Ein Kerem’s Henrietta Szold School of Nursing, graduating in 2012, completing midwifery training in 2014 and earning a master’s degree in women’s health in 2020.

Now in the final year of a Ph.D. program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, she is studying health-systems policy and management, focusing on how to expand midwifery models of care in Israel.

“I will always be clinical,” Zarbiv told JNS. “But midwives are more than clinicians. We need to be in policy. We need to be in leadership. We need to be in research. We need to be at every table where women’s health is being discussed.”

In Israel, midwives are central to hospital labor and delivery wards, caring for women through uncomplicated births. Outside the delivery room, however, their role remains limited.

Zarbiv sees that as a missed opportunity.

“If any country needs to implement full-scope, independent and autonomous midwifery care, it’s Israel,” she said.

Her vision is one of continuity of care, with women supported by midwives before birth, during labor and throughout the postpartum period.

The need became even more apparent after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, when ambulances could not always reach women quickly and pregnant women could not always get safely to hospitals in frontline areas.

In response, MDA and the Israel Midwives Organization launched the First Contractions volunteer midwife program in 2024, integrating trained midwives into the emergency-response system. What began with a small group in northern Israel has grown into a nationwide network of Jewish, Arab, Christian and Druze midwives linked directly to MDA dispatchers.

When a woman in labor calls MDA’s 101 emergency line, the nearest volunteer midwife can be dispatched alongside medics and paramedics. MDA equips volunteers with birth kits, medical equipment and identifying vests.

Since the beginning of 2026, MDA teams have treated 6,123 pregnant women, many in active labor. Approximately 590 births took place at home or in ambulances en route to hospitals.

“That is a health-systems change,” she said, noting that MDA now relies on midwives to help develop training programs and educate emergency personnel.

One recent call involved a postpartum woman suffering from severe preeclampsia. Her blood pressure had reached 200/100, and she was experiencing serious neurological symptoms.

Another call involved a woman in preterm labor at 33 weeks. By the time Zarbiv arrived, the mother was already pushing. She helped position the mother, maintained a calm atmosphere and guided the delivery of a premature but healthy baby.

Postpartum care remains one of Zarbiv’s greatest concerns. Women discharged after birth may develop complications ranging from bleeding and infection to depression, hypertension and breastfeeding difficulties.

In one of her earliest MDA calls, Zarbiv arrived at the home of a woman who had just delivered and was refusing examinations.

“Shalom, I’m Gila,” she told the woman. “I’m a midwife. I’m with you.”

The woman’s first question was whether the service cost money.

“No,” Zarbiv replied. “I’m absolutely free.”

Zarbiv noted that MDA’s volunteer midwife program reflects the diversity of Israeli society, with Jewish and Arab responders working side by side.

“People need to know that we treat everyone,” she said.

Balancing hospital shifts, emergency calls, academic research and public advocacy, Zarbiv hopes to move midwives from the margins of policy into the heart of women’s health care.

“MDA’s volunteer midwife program shows that when midwives are trained, equipped and dispatched as part of the emergency system, they change outcomes and change the experience of care,” she said.

For Zarbiv, the next step is ensuring that lesson extends far beyond emergency response.